The year was 1977 and Randy Ross and Art Thomsen were conducting this two day tennis camp at Ken Caryl Ranch.
I was invited to be one of the coaches and gladly accepted.
It was a terrific weekend as players moved from court to court learning new ideas from six coaches.
The most memorable image that comes to me writing this nearly 50 years later was that Randy had players playing points on a unique court….the net had a blanket covering it and made the net appear higher…more of an obstacle.
RR explained that because players couldn’t see through the net, they tended to aim higher and have fewer net felonies.
This was long before Maria Sharapova’s average net clearance at The Australian Open was calculated to be 31 inches and before the Bryan Brothers played 2 hours and 25 minutes at The US OPEN and only had two net errors.
Maybe they’d prepared for their matches with a blanket on the net.
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